Friday, 13 February 2015

more and more waiting

We got up this morning and found out that Jadon had had a reasonable night but not great. He was struggling with blood pressure and pulmonary edema (fluid on the lungs). The medical team determined that a likely source was that the left ventricle was not pumping properly which is somewhat perplexing as the left ventricle was not touched during the surgery. Normally the right side of the heart is the one that takes longer to come tfull function but Jadon 's right ventricle is doing fairly well.

To determine if they can find the issue they decided to do a surgical procedure at the bed side. They went back into the chest (it had not been fully closed) and stopped a few bleeding spots. They then clamped the ECMO tubing off meaning that all the blood was going through Jadon's heart and dependent on him to pump it. Jadon did not tolerate it well as his blood pressure dropped significantly. However they were able to complete an echo (ultrasound of the heart). They deemed that structurally all was sound. The tricuspid valve they had difficulty with during surgery is doing well. So... The diagnosis is that the left ventricle is worn or from being on the bypass machine so long. Do they want to give it a couple more days to rest so Jadon stays on the ECMO. To help relieve pressure to the left side of the heart and let it rest better the surgeon put in a small relief tube into the left atrium to drain some blood out.

And we wait and pray. As of now they don't see a reason why it won't recover. If it doesn't in the next few days they will have to explore other reasons.